About Mandi

My name is Mandi and I was initially diagnosed with breast cancer, on December 30, 2010, the day before my thirty-first birthday. At the time I found out that I had stage IIB breast cancer, did the usual treatment, chemo, bilateral mastectomy, and radiation. Later I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer the official diagnoses was on October 6, 2014 with mets to the spine, lymph nodes in my chest and lungs.

I was a marketing professional and a bit of a workaholic, treatment became my full time job in the middle of 2015. I am also a proud dog mom of three dogs (a.k.a. no “real” kids, my ovaries and hormones are long gone). I am married to the most amazing man in the universe, Mike. I always threatened my husband that I would become a stay at home dog mom blogger that knitted dog sweaters to sell on Etsy, never in my wildest dreams did I figure half of that joke would sort of come true (now to figure out how to make a dog sweater – it is over on #TheMandiList). I write that blog thing too, but about breast cancer. If you told me I would write a breast cancer blog called Darn Good Lemonade 10 years ago I would have laughed at you.

I started writing this blog about breast cancer as a way to keep my friends and family informed about my early stage treatment. It has morphed into my place to tell my story – laugh, cry and just live out loud. It now covers my life with metastatic breast cancer (stage IV), the good, the bad and the ugly. Mike promises to keep it running for me long after I am gone. I hope that sharing my story about life with breast cancer I will help others understand breast cancer – all stages – and that we still need to fund research because breast cancer doesn’t have a cure.

I decided to call this blog “Darn Good Lemonade” because one of my initial responses to my diagnoses is that I better learn to make darn good lemonade now that life has given me some lemons (also… I live in Utah and people are more comfortable with the word “darn” over “damn”).

I do my best to be an advocate for breast cancer – no matter the stage. I primarily support metastatic breast cancer research – without a cure for metastatic breast cancer, there will never be a cure for any kind of breast cancer. When you choose a charity, research how much they donate to research. Ask questions and support those that fund metastatic breast cancer research, so that someday blogs like mine won’t have to be written. I am not anti-pink ribbon, but I am not a bedazzled pink ribbon wearer, this post covers my view on the world of pink as I see it.

If you want to read this cancer blog from the oldest post forward check out the timeline page, where I list all of the posts in chronological order.